Rethinking Elvis

by Duffett, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780190094102
• ISBN10: 0190094109
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780190094133
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2026-01-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Decades after his passing, Elvis Presley remains one of popular music's greatest icons. He was among the most successful, influential, socially significant, and controversial performers of the twentieth century, with a celebrity so indelible that every recent American president has negotiated its orbit. While much of the coverage of Elvis' life concerns his personal history and musical ability, Rethinking Elvis pushes beyond the familiar to address Elvis' branding, historical and geographic reception, heritage, and fan phenomenon. Using Elvis' iconography as a point of departure, popular music scholars and historians contend with issues related to the performer's whiteness, Southern identity, and gender, among others, in turn offering myriad opportunities to pursue new approaches in the emergent field of Elvis studies.

Author Biography

Mark Duffett is Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Chester. After receiving degrees from Oxford University and the University of British Columbia, he completed his doctorate on Elvis fandom at the University of Wales in 1999. Since then, Dr. Duffett has established himself as an international scholar with keynotes at conferences in Finland, Portugal, and La Nouvelle Sorbonne in Paris. He has written for The Guardian, and been quoted in Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and The New York Times. His books include Understanding Fandom (2013), Counting Down Elvis (2018), and Elvis: Roots, Image, Comeback, Phenomenon (2020).

Table of Contents

1. Elvis - Other Stories to Tell, Mark Duffett

2. Elvis Presley and the Irrepressible Influence of Southern Evangelicalism, James Goff

3. Old Habits Die Hard - Elvis, or the Burden of a Southern Identity, Michael T. Bertrand

4. Mixing Up Elvis, Sean Redmond

5. Elvis, Race, and the Unity of Complimentary Genius, Cheryl S. Carr

6. Hypersensitive Youth and the Meanings of Elvis in 1950s Denmark, Bertel Nygaard and Rasmus Rosenørn

7. Elvis Outside the USA - A Dark Shadow in the Early Italian Cultural Cold War, Marilisa Merolla

8. An American Cultural Weapon? The Impact of Elvis in 1950s Cold War Europe, Mathias Haeussler

9. Gate People - Fan History Before Elvis Heritage at Graceland, Mark Duffett

10. The American Dream? Elvis Presley, William Eggleston and the "Lost" Photographs of Graceland, Johnny Hopkins

11. Elvis and Musical Spaces - What the King means to Nashville Tourism, Robert Fry

12. A Star is Imagined - The "Unproduction" of Elvis Presley's Film Career, Landon Palmer

13. Posthumous Representations of Elvis - From Cultural Icon to Transproperty, June M. Madeley and Daniel Downes

14. Operation Blue Suede Shoes - Black Lives Matter and the Meaning of Elvis in Contemporary Memphis, Amanda Nell Edgar

15. The Future of Elvis Studies, Mark Duffett

Index